I've bought Ligthroom3 at a "great discount" in the Adobe store just to find out that they sell the new version LR4 at an even lower price than that LR3 with the "great discount" five weeks later. This leaves me as a customer feeling screwed by Adobe, and LR3 will remain the first and the last Adobe product I'll ever purchase. They might have made a couple of bucks out of me, but when the time comes then I'll look for another product rather than paying for an Adobe upgrade.

You may very well find that with version 3 updated to 3.6, you hvae a far more stable and workable product than version 4. I have recently deleted version 4 and gone back to 3.6 as 4 is so bad. Try 3.6, I think you'll be massively pleased with your purchase.

I've bought Ligthroom3 at a "great discount" in the Adobe store just to find out that they sell the new version LR4 at an even lower price than that LR3 with the "great discount" five weeks later.

So, your got a "great discount" on LR3 (much better price than the vast majority of LR3 buyers got) and then LR4 came out and the price of an upgrade to LR4 is now even cheaper than LR2>L3

And with your date of purchase coming AFTER the LR4 beta was released on Jan 10th, you are somehow surprised by this turn of events? If you had made your purchase within 30 days of LR4 being released, you would be entitled to a free upgrade to LR4 (pretty sure that is the policy).

Truth be told, this situation you find yourself in seems more like a case of poor timing on your part. So, you can either upgrade to LR4 for $79.00 (which is $20 cheaper than LR2>LR3 upgrades cost) or you can keep using LR3 for as long as you have a computer it will run on. Hardly sounds like a tragedy to me...

Well, I haven't been talking about a tragedy ... I am just pissed, and I don't really have the time to research everything that I am buying whether or not there might be a chance that they might come out with something newer and cheaper shortly. So, you are definitely right that my timing was bad, and I am sure other people got it worse than me. Nevertheless, it sucks that Adobe, in my opinion only, lures people with a discount into getting their "old" stuff off the shelfs by knowing that the new version of the same product will be sold at an even lower price shortly.

Caveds66, selling down before a new product is released is a common practise for all products and markets. It is how you respond that you are responsible for and in my experience slagging rarely works. My strategy is to make considered and polite requests in the ears of those who have influence, a user to user forum is not usually the place for that. I'm sure Adobe will see you right.

So... the way to get a discount out of Adobe is the throw a public tantrum? I'm sure that caveds is not the only one who saw LR3 discounted after the beta came out and discovered that getting to LR4 (at the new lower price) would cost about the same as buying it outright.

Thanks for your reply Geoff but the official reaction of Adobe Netherlands gives one no space for doubt. They are saying that March 5th will be the keydate and otherwise one is not eligible for a free update according their policy.

Next week I am in the Netherlands and I will try a phonecall as you suggested. Their phonenumbers cannot be called from ouside the country as they are special numbers.

The point is, in my opinion, not that I miss the free upgrade (I understand Adobe has to take a date) but the prizing. As within a couple of weeks the prize falls from originally eur 306 to eur 199,71 both for the full version, I feel foolished as the offer a promotopm with 50% off and one has still to pay eur 153,71 in stead as let me say eur 129,71 as the LR4 full prize.

I agree whole heartedly with Caveds. We are not talking about Walmart who is a discount retailer and anyone who buys from Walmart does so with the knowledge that any product on their shelf can be discounted the following week. The purchaser has no come back in this case.

When you purchase direct from the manufacturer who knows full well that they have a new product coming on the market in a short period of time and they sell off old stock at a discounted rate, and without offering a cheap upgrade in the near future. That stinks. Once the first major upgrade has been produced, it doesn't cost a fortune to churn out subsequent DVD copies, even less when you down load an upgrade off the net.

Having said that it also stinks when a new product is offered on line that still has a lot of problems associated with it. LR4 is slow, LR4.1rc is quicker but there are still a few faults in there. Adobe have been in the market for a long time, and I have been using Adobe products for around 20 years, over the years they have bought out most of their opposition, Indesign was Adobe Pagermaker and before that it was Aldus Pagemaker. Adobe should have enough knowledge by now to be able to put new products out that are bug free.

What Caveds is saying is the thin end of the wedge, there is an old maxim that the customer is always right, the cost of a replacement upgrade for a person who feels that he has been hard done by is nothing compared with the bad publicity that person can generate on a forum such as this. Come on Adobe get your act together.